CRM Types Explained: How to Choose the Right One?

Can you run your business without your customers? 

To help you satisfy your customers and improve your business ROI, we have come forward to help you learn about the different types of CRM systems. With various types of customer relationship management, you can automate your crucial tasks and enable seamless communication with your customers.

The CRM market is expected to rise with a CAGR of 12.5% globally by 2029. However, while there has been a mushroom growth of different types of relationship management software, every CRM software is not the right choice for your business. 

To know what would suit your business best, we have divided the blog into various sections to discuss the different types of CRM and benefits of CRM Software. We’ll also look at the various types of CRM with examples. 

What are the Different Types of CRM Software?

The different types of CRM software include:

1. Operational CRM
2. Collaborative CRM
3. Analytical CRM
4. Strategic CRM

Customer relationship management software helps companies organize and maintain customer relationships. But does it just manage customer relationships?

CRM system does much more! 

With the different types of CRM categories, businesses aim to reach more prospects, accelerate conversion rates and increase the ROI of their company. So let’s dive into a detailed analysis of various types of CRM technology systems.

Operational CRM

Why do manual tasks when you can automate them? 

Operational CRM is among the types of CRM in marketing that simplify and facilitate a company’s main business processes. For example, you can easily streamline sales processes, marketing campaigns, and customer support with operational CRM software.

You can store all your important data and files in one specific place. Operational CRM systems centralize all your marketing processes. The traits in operational CRM are built to support a broad range of business functions.

There are three basic modules of operational CRM. 

Sales automation

1. Line item quoting 
2. Specifications development
3. Sales dashboard with graphs and charts
4. Opportunity management

Customer service automation:

1. Knowledge Base management
2. Product returns
3. Service requests
4. Customer complaints

Enterprise marketing automation

1. Personalized letter forms
2. Event-based marketing
3. Email marketing
4. Campaign management
5. Integration of websites

Benefits of Operational CRM

1. Automation of Tasks

   Operational CRM saves time and reduces employee efforts. Employees don’t have to complete their tasks manually anymore. Some of the automated features include:

   • Updating scheduling and streamlining the appointment timings
   • Lead routing and scoring
   • Sending follow-up emails to clients and customers
   • Creating and managing reports
   • Synchronizing and updating the lead contact information

   Employees can improve their productivity and serve their customers better by automating tasks. 

2. Effective Collaboration

   Misplacements and mistakes are common if you use multiple systems to exchange information across departments. Information silos and hither-tither communications damage progress, and the worst result is dissatisfied customers.

   But, with operational CRM, you can store, collect and access every data from a single access point. So, why take the stress of manual storage? 

3. Satisfied Customers

   You can improve the customer experience with numerous tools using operational CRM. As a result, customers do not have to wait long for your responses, and you can offer them enough information in a minimal time. And this is one of the best ways to keep your customers happy. 

   In addition, with operational CRM, consumers can stay engaged with your company’s brand with innovative features like live chat options and client portals.

Examples of Operational CRMs

1. Prospecting

   It is time-consuming for the sales team to perform manual tasks on countless leads. There are various grounds to cover for the sales team, including collecting information on the latest performance, company size, and standards. 

   It will be tedious to look for prospects interested in your products will be tedious without the right tools. However, with automated prospecting tools, you can easily search and organize the data in a single place.

2. Feedback

   Improvements and feedbacks go hand in hand. If your company does not know what customers feel, there will be no enhancements, and you will miss out on opportunities. 

   Filling spreadsheets manually with customer surveys takes plenty of time and is prone to errors. But with automated feedback reports, you can track the customers’ feedback. After the customers provide feedback, the operational CRM collects and structures the information into reports based on crucial demographics.

3. Welcome Campaign

   You have turned a prospect into a customer. Great.  But does it end here?

   You need to engage your clients so that they have plans to renew their contracts. And welcome campaigns are a great way to achieve it. You can include useful tips for using your product and many other factors. 

   If you automate your welcome campaigns, you can connect with your clients from the beginning. It improves customer loyalty and retention levels.

Collaborative CRM

Great communication is key to satisfying your customers. And collaborative CRM makes it seamless for you. 

Collaborative CRM systems are one of the kinds of CRM that streamline customer data where sales, marketing, and service professionals can see it. Typically collaborative CRMs include company divisions like technical support, vendors, distributors, marketing, and customer service. 

Collaborative CRM’s main aim is to simplify processes and workflows through the company’s hierarchies and structures. It automates customer interactions, business management, and back-office operations. It makes everything transparent within the team. 

The two crucial elements of collaborative CRM are:

1. Interaction Management– It keeps a record of all customer interactions, including the information communicated and the way of communication. 
2. Channel Management– It grasps insights through interaction management and decides the best medium to communicate with the customers.

Benefits of Collaborative CRM

1. Enhances Customer Service

   Every individual has different communication choices. While some like connecting with phone calls, others prefer emails or text messages. And it is tiresome to keep track of everyone’s preferences. 

   But with a collaborative CRM, you can automatically reach the right communication channel.

2. Customer Retention

   With a collaborative CRM, you can build an in-depth profile of the customer and what they expect from you.

   Moreover, you can connect with them on any platform of their choice with the latest information. In such a way, you can reduce customer churn quantity and improve customer engagement.

3. Customer Data Availability Across Multiple Channels

   Connecting with several customers on several platforms can be very challenging. But, with a collaborative CRM, you can link your company’s activities to various operations and integrate data from every communication channel.

   The collaborative CRM offers interactions that surpass a single team role or department.

Examples of Collaborative CRM

1. Customer service contact
2. Technical support communication
3. Sales and purchase history 
4. Marketing choices

Analytical CRM

Satisfy your customers to enhance your business satisfaction. 

Analytical CRM is among the CRM types that collect data about an organization’s customer interaction to improve customer satisfaction and retention. 

The analytical CRM happens at the back end without the customer being unaware of the analysis and capture of their interactions and actions with the company.  Online analytical processing helps capitalize on and identify customer behavior and trends. 

The insights that companies gather can be effectively used to convert and generate leads, improve customer experience, and design innovative marketing campaigns.

An analytical CRM combines and examines various consumer data like:

1. Marketing data
2. Financial data
3. Sales data

Benefits of Analytical CRM

1. Higher Conversion Rate

   Analytical CRM offers customized interactions to enhance relationships with prospects and customers. It opens doors to higher conversion rates.

   Clients satisfied with your firm’s services always look for more from you. And what’s better than understanding your customers and boosting your sales?

2. Enhanced Market Analysis

   Analytical CRM helps your forecast sales.

   Estimating the latest marketing trends, market health, and other factors is usually challenging. 

   But, analytical CRM does everything to help employees. It gathers customer information, organizes it into a repository, and segregates the audience into various demographics to improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

3. Accurate Financial Prediction and Planning

   What’s better than accurate financial forecasting for your company?

   Analytical CRM assists the top management with performance metrics for better financial forecasting and planning. You can also analyze your customer habits, generate better leads and validate customer data.

Examples of Analytical CRM 

1. Cross-selling and up-selling
2. Sales refinement 
3. Optimization of prices
4. Product development 
5. Predicting trends

Strategic CRM

Without customers, your company cannot be a workplace!

Strategic CRM is among the types of CRM systems where companies put the customers as their top-most priority. It considers the customer lifecycle the most crucial aspect of a business’s survival. 

The CRM gathers, divides, and puts data about market trends and customers to develop better value propositions for customers. 

With a strategic CRM, you can gather in-depth data to facilitate general business practices and communications. Its main goal is to improve knowledge about customers and personalize interactions with them to maintain long-term relationships. 

Benefits of Strategic CRM

1. Better Customer Knowledge

   Knowing your customers well is crucial for any business. With the CRM, your company will gain in-depth knowledge about your customers, their likes and dislikes resulting in long-term relationships with them.

2. Improved Segmentation

   How can you segment your customers?

   It’s easy with strategic CRM. You can segment your prospects and leads into your target audience. 

   Employees can easily break down data into criteria and categories to make specific lists. Companies can now have a fair idea about customers interested in your service.

3. Enhanced Communication

   Who likes hassles? No one.

   Strategic CRM is here to transform your hassles into relaxation. 

   There’s no need to make your customers wait any longer! You can automate your communication processes and improve your communication time. For example, you can draft emails and schedule their dispatch according to your convenience.

Examples of Strategic CRM

1. Data elimination and cleansing
2. Rewards and loyalty programs
3. Targeted and customized marketing campaigns
4. Behavior tracking and customer interaction
5. Create valuable content

How to Select the Right CRM Type?

Selecting the right one among the different CRM types can be challenging. The tips below can help your company select the best CRM software. 

1. Goal Identification

   The most crucial factor before you get a CRM to your office is to clarify your reason for buying it. Some reasons to get a CRM include:

   • Tracking the consumer base
   • Tracking leads and their activities
   • Enhancing productivity
   • Improving profitability 
   • Managing relationships
   • Generating personalized reporting 
   • Structuring business operations

2. Understanding Installation

   Knowing the implementation process is crucial before introducing new software into the system. In most cases, the vendor’s professional experts head up the deployment.

   And in some other cases, the software goes through a training and testing process to work on system bugs and establish the best practices.

   The software might not have extra installation costs, but you will need money to educate your team and upload data into a new platform.

3. User Approval

   Introducing a new system always comes with resistance. Some members will hesitate to change and transfer data into a new system.

   However, it is your duty to put your employees at ease and ensure there are no risks of sharing or losing customers to other parties.

4. Product Mobility

   Understand the mobility of the product. Your team will use a plethora of devices to access the new CRM software. So, ensure a CRM tool that users can access with numerous web-enabled devices.

5. Formation of Processes

   Business processes are kept in mind while developing CRM tools. But every business process is specific to every company. You need to keep in mind that the CRM tool is flexible enough to handle your business workflow. Look for a CRM to help your business grow and evolve with the changing processes.

6. Compatibility

   Choose a CRM that is compatible with your present software. Your system must be connected to an API; if not, you must look for a third-party platform. Integrate all your plans to facilitate your data organization. .

7. Product Demonstration

   You will take time to understand how a new product works. So it is better if you get access to a product demo. Most importantly, it is best if you use the demo. Ensure to gain mastery in the demonstration process. You will get a transparent idea of the strong and weak points of the software.

8. Reporting Abilities

   You can improve the customer experience with numerous tools using operational CRM. As a result, customers do not have to wait long for your responses, and you can offer them enough information in a minimal time. And this is one of the best ways to keep your customers happy. 

   In addition, with operational CRM, consumers can stay engaged with your company’s brand with innovative features like live chat options and client portals.

Final Words

Selecting a CRM for your company is a lengthy process. But with our help, you can now select the right one from the various CRM types. The analysis provided above will help you guide your decision to choose a CRM for your business.

Ensure to get the best CRM system for your company. Once you get in touch with the appropriate service provider, nothing can stop you! Happy searching.